The shipment of explosives is carefully regulated by various government agencies, primarily for safety purposes. The regulations impose various levels of restrictions depending upon type of explosive, weight of individual explosive components, total weight in an individual package, relative positioning of multiple explosive components in a single package, types of packaging materials and other factors.
Commercial and private carriers are concerned with and regulate the packaging and shipment of explosives. In order to ship explosives or components containing explosives, commercial and private carriers typically require a UN shipping classification that demonstrates that the packaging method for the explosives has been established as safe for highway and private or commercial aircraft conveyance. Typically, tests are conducted to determine the shipping classification of an explosive article and, particularly, the ability of the article and its packaging to prevent or contain multiple or mass detonation of the explosive. The more likely an article is to mass detonate other similar articles, the more restrictive and expensive it is to ship. Relatively higher explosive content explosives and explosive components have a greater tendency to mass detonate.